The Patient Safety Culture

The biggest difference between risk management and patient safety is the ability to fix issues and influence additional changes to create a safer environment for all patients. This is accomplished by changing the culture of the working environment rather than the specific issue being corrected, Patient safety tends to focus on being proactive to prevent mistakes,which is totally opposite of the reactive actions needed when mistakes occur as in risk management. Risk management uses lessons learned from past incidents as a means of defending the actions taken by individuals of a current incident. Patient safety, however,can support risk management by identifying and understanding why mistakes happen and take steps to make corrections to eliminate those mistakes from occurring in the future. In simple terms, patient safety is meant to have everyone operating on the same page with a general understanding of the expectations of their actions and creating a safer environment for the patient and the health care provider which requires constant assessment from everyone's perspective and making changes when

There are two common ways to handle a medical error. One is by blaming the individual or things when the error occurs, called it the “culture of blame”. The other one is by focusing on the safety goal using effective systems and teamwork, called “culture of safety". We may say that one is more applicable than the other, or maybe one is more beneficial than the other. In real life though, only one can be applied in a healthcare system, the one that is proven effective regardless its origin, pragmatic, or .

Keeping patients safe is essential in today’s health care system, but patient safety events that violate that safety are increasing each year. It was only recently, that the focus on patient safety was reinforced by a report prepared by Institute of medicine (IOM) entitled ” To err is human, building a safer health system”(Wakefield & Iliffe,2002).This report found that approx-imately 44,000 to 98,000 deaths occur each year due to medical errors and that the majority was preventable. Deaths due to medical errors exceed deaths due to many other causes such as like HIV infections, breast cancer and even traffic accidents (Wakefield & Iliffe, 2002). After this IOM reports, President Clinton established quality interagency

Patient safety is of major concern in healthcare settings due to the preventable nature of events that sometimes lead to serious injury, and even death, for patients. This was catapulted to the forefront of healthcare delivery in 1999 when the Institute of Medicine wrote a scathing report; To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System, that highlighted "the lack of safety for patients in healthcare organizations" (Ulrich and Kear 2014). The National Patient Safety

You are so correct, it is importance for us health professionals to share a common understanding of patient safety standards and practices and improve patient safety depends largely on the ways in which we; share and learn with other health professionals as well as students. We must improve the way we treat each other by using respect and compassion, and learn from one another and from patient safety events or any challenges that impact the ability for us as health professionals, to improve is to ensure better patient outcomes and patient experience in (Milstead 2015 [Power Point slide 6-10).

This article was selected as it explained and discussed the probable standardized procedure that health care organizations may have to follow for improvements in patient safety. This article explains how the inter-personal and professional relationship of different health care providers need to be maintained for better health care as explained in one of the chapters of health care management.

Over the last several years, a wide variety of health care organizations have been facing a number of challenges. This is because of pressures associated with: rising costs, increasing demands and larger numbers of patients. For many facilities this has created a situation where patient safety issues are often overlooked. This is because the staff is facing tremendous amounts of pressure, long hours and more patients. The combination of these factors has created a situation where a variety of hospitals need to improve their patient safety procedures. In the case of Sharp Memorial Hospital, they are focused on addressing these issues through different strategies. To fully understand how they are able to achieve these objectives requires looking at: specific ways the organization has responded to the crisis in medical errors, their definition of patient safety, the causes of errors, systematic barriers and transformations that have been adopted. Together, these different elements will provide the greatest insights as to how the facility is coping with the crisis in patient safety.

Patient safety one of the driving forces of healthcare. Patient safety is defined as, “ the absence of preventable harm to a patient during the process of healthcare or as the prevention of errors and adverse events caused by the provision of healthcare rather than the patient’s underlying disease process. (Kangasniemi, Vaismoradi, Jasper, &Turunen, 2013)”. It was just as important in the past as it is day. Our healthcare field continues to strive to make improvement toward safer care for patients across the country.

Synergy Model for Care is considered a high middle range theory as it includes concepts, self-transcendence, resilience and growth and development (McEwen & Wills, 2014 p. 239). Middle range theories were mostly derived from grand theories in order to develop a bridge to clinical practice. A high middle range theory is generalized with fewer concepts than a grand theory and applicable across specialties and different clinical settings. With high middle range theories propositions are clearly defined with testable hypothesis (McEwen & Wills, 2014, p. 74).

Patient safety has become a major concern in the healthcare sector because of the prevalence of medical errors. Patient safety has even stood out as its own ideal discipline and it encompasses certain areas of healthcare service provision such as reporting, analysis and prevention of medical errors (because of the upsurge of medical errors across the globe). Initially, medical errors were not considered a big issue in medical circles until there was an increased trend of medical errors across the globe which resulted into adverse medical events and a high number of patient deaths. This trend prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to carry out an assessment of the impact of medical errors across the globe and

Patient safety should be the top priorty of every hospital and medical professional. Unfortunately it seems that priority gets lost sometimes in the business of health care. For example, the national death rate from a knee replacement surgery is about 1 in 1000. Patients that have that surgery done at a hospital that does not regularly perform it are 3 times more likely to die. However a recent story on National Public Radio highlighted some positive steps a few of the countries leading teaching hospitals are taking to prevent unnecessary risks to the safety of their patients.

Today we see a huge contrast in the performance of healthcare systems. On one side we see miracles that biomedical science has been able to deliver like sequencing human genes, putting in artificial hearts and nearly curing childhood leukemia etc. Yet on another side of the same advanced healthcare system, we see patients dying due to minor preventable infections or diseases such as dehydration or introduction of a wrong drug that produces the opposite effect of what was actually required. WHO defines patient safety as the absence of preventable harm to a patient during the process of health care. The word preventable here is a bit complicated. However for somewhat understanding we may explain it in terms of resources and skills that vary according

Within every healthcare organization, there are inherent risks to patient safety, in addition to situations that must be planned for in order to decrease risks. “HRO concepts facilitate a systems-oriented problem-solving focus and response” (Pavkovic et al., 2011, p. 346). By utilizing HRO concepts, leaders exercise analysis to gain knowledge and potential lessons from situations within the organization (Pavkovic et al., 2011). Healthcare organizations benefit from this knowledge by developing and implementing risk management plans proactively, so when an issue occurs, patient and organizational safety is preserved. In the event that a safety incident occurs, staff members and leaders will be better prepared in handling the situation effectively with a plan in place than trying to troubleshoot and control the situation as it is transpiring. Through addressing potential risks proactively, the integrity of the healthcare organization will be preserved as well as the overall safety of the

In today’s health care system, “quality” and “safety” are one in the same when it comes to patient care. As Florence Nightingale described our profession long ago, it takes work and vigilance to ensure we are doing the best we can to care for our patients. (Mitchell, 2008)

In 2008, the World Alliance for Patient Safety released a report of evidence on patient safety in which the positive characteristics of a patient safety culture were explained as open communication about safety problems, effective teamwork and support by local and organizational leaders who make safety a priority they also describe patient safety as global issue affecting all countries.(4)